FreightPath is building a digital freight network for freight brokers, carriers and shippers to collaborate together and ship goods faster through real-time freight visibility, digital paperwork, and process automation.
The freight technology (or freight tech) landscape has heated up quite a bit over the past five years - what was once mainly comprised of legacy on-premise ERP solutions has blossomed into a highly innovative field with a variety of players.
The key areas of innovation are generally clustered around several key problems faced by motor carriers, freight brokers, and shipping companies:
Intelligence on pricing decisions. Similar to fintech, a key area of innovation is providing freight businesses with accurate predictions and intelligence on future costs and revenue so that better decision making and resource allocation can be done.
Real-time freight visibility. This is what it sounds like - knowing the location, status, temperature, humidity of freight as accurately and specifically as possible so that customers can track freight processing and maintain quality of goods (particularly time or temperature sensitive freight like pharmaceuticals or perishable goods).
Collaboration and decentralization. One of the powerful effects of consumer transportation platforms like Uber and Lyft has been the idea that the same concept can be used to decentralize commercial goods transportation. While it has faced challenges - particularly due to the high degree of operational complexity and expertise involved with commercial freight transportation compared to taxis - marketplace platforms like Uber Freight and Convoy have definitely revolutionized the way traditional 3PLs (third party logistics) approaches technology.
FreightPath was started in 2015 by Gwenaël (Gwen) Malbec, an experienced high-tech consultant who saw a need in the transportation industry for a technology platform that allowed shippers and carriers to collaborate and ship faster and more efficiently online.
Initially launched as “PickMyLoad”, it was a marketplace platform based on the Uber concept (i.e. “Uber for freight”) several years before the freight marketplace concept became mainstream with Uber Freight and Convoy. However, with extensive product-market testing and validation, Gwen and the team found that this concept had flaws when put into practice.
Although it should have made freight faster and more affordable, it failed to address the level of complexity or expertise required by most 3PLs, and did not produce the vital documentation and paperwork needed to actually process the freight. As a result, the team pivoted and built FreightPath - the world’s first freight network.
FreightPath is a “freight network”. Much like a social network (i.e. Facebook or LinkedIn) helps people connect online, FreightPath connects the different parties involved in freight and allows them to collaborate and ship goods through a digital platform.
Their goal with this is to build a leapfrog transportation management platform that not only helps transportation companies collaborate and work online, but also allows them to manage operations, track freight and deal with their shipping paperwork. Instead of having to juggle between a limited platform like Convoy to find partners to ship with and then logging that information in a traditional TMS (transportation management system), companies using FreightPath can go from quote to delivered shipment on one unified platform.
The FreightPath team launched their first MVP (minimum viable product) as a “TMS plus” in 2020 to a small group of friendlies and early adopters, and have since been using feedback from them in a lean startup environment to build a platform that’s not just innovative, but easily adopted by the industry.
As they’ve begun to grow in 2021, with over 400% YoY growth through three quarters, they’re planning on releasing even more features and functionalities to scale the FreightPath platform and introduce better ways for their customers to connect and take advantage of their network technology.
Their team’s vision for the future is simple - that FreightPath will be an essential platform for moving goods, a digital way of connecting logistics companies that mirrors the way LinkedIn has become essential for professional connections or Facebook has become essential for personal connections.
FreightPath was and continues to be built with a very lean and close-knit team, and are extremely proud of everyone who’s been a part of their growth from 2015 onwards. Of course, Founder and CEO Gwen Malbec is a huge part of establishing company vision and culture, but FreightPath wouldn’t be the same without the industry and market positioning expertise that Head of Sales Anthony Natale or the product and marketing creativity that Head of Product Terry Wang brought once they joined the team in 2019.
As a team, they’re passionate about helping the little guy (even if sometimes they can get on their nerves) and evening the playing field with technology so that anyone can succeed in transportation. And like every other startup - hopefully they haven’t lost their sense of humor or ambition either.
You can see what FreightPath is up to by visiting their website at https://freightpath.io Follow on Social
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